Ikea SVAJS Clothes Cover Review

You don't think you need something until you just "have to" have it. This happened last year when we started noticing a ton of moths flying around the house. No matter how many we "took care of", they kept coming back -- we were "doing" about 5 a day at that point.

The good thing is that none of my pretty and expensive wool clothes were affected. That probably had to do with the fact that I don't have closet space and leave most of those items out in the open. Mr. Google says that moths don't like light and air movement. It can't be that I keep my clothes clean because there was a jacket that I hadn't washed after two winters with very regular wear. Regardless, I wanted covers for "protection". 

Ikea SVAJS Long Cover

And therein was part of the problem: my limited number of visits to the dry cleaner meant I had very few dry cleaning covers. When you start looking for something, you're sometimes surprised how easy it is to get it. I can't say this was the exact case for clothing covers. However, I knew that Canadian Tire stocked an expensive one at more than $10 each. Being cheap, I looked around more and stumbled across the Ikea versions -- yep, versions.

Clothing covers appeared to be fairly new products at Ikea at the time and I got lucky on the timing of my paranoia. There are two versions: a white SVAJS version made of EVA plastic and a SKUBB version made of 100% polyester, according to the website. The former is $2.99 for a pack of three, and the latter is $9.99 for three. Both versions have zippers, but the SVAJS is only available in white and the SKUBB now comes in black, purple, and turquoise. If I remember right, the SKUBB used to only come in black. One last detail, both products come with one long cover and two short covers. According to the website, the SVAJS and SKUBE covers have the same dimensions: about 23.63" x 41.38" and 23.63" x 53.25".

Configuration
Ikea SVAJS: US$ 2.99

Assembly
No need. They came out of the package pretty easy and the zipper's nice and smooth.


Ikea SVAJS Short Cover

Stability
Coat hanger not included. This cover just rests on the hanger and/or article of clothing.

Expandability / Customizability
Surprise me.

Everyday Use
I get hanger, I put coat on hanger, I put hanger with coat into cover, I zip up cover, I is done. Easy?

Okay, the material is EVA plastic, as you can see in the label below. It feels very smooth and I'd say fairly tough. I had the chance to actually take it out of the house to carry a suit jacket to work. There was no rain, luckily, just a sunny and hot summer day. No damage was noticed after a to and fro trip -- "to" in a briefcase and "fro" draped across my forearm.

Somehow, I managed to scrounge a few suit hangers (the ones with the curved and wide shoulders) that are much bigger and thicker than typical cheap plastic or wood hangers. These are used to hang up my more expensive items including the ones I put into these clothes covers. The thickness at the top fills out the opening at the top of these covers and provide a pretty good seal. Moths have still been seen in the house and I still haven't noticed any damage to items stored in these covers -- totally anecdotal evidence.


Ikea SVAJS Short Cover Label

If you're not aware, I'm 5'4" and wear XS and S sized clothing. This means a shoulder size of 36" to 38". As you can see in the first photo, I managed to fit a 3/4 top coat into the longer cover quite easily. The smaller covers fit my suit jackets quite well with about a foot of spare length at the bottom.

One somewhat surprising thing is that the zippers on all of my covers work very smoothly. Guess I was surprised because these covers are about $1 a piece.

Do note that during my research, I hear some people talking about how certain plastics don't agree with certain fabric types. I have no idea what that's about, but my wool items haven't shown any signs of discontent (i.e. damage) as far as I can tell after a year or two being stored in them.

Honestly, they're $3.00 for three. Just get them. Use them as garbage bags if you hate them. Geez.


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